PTI

Fatehpur (UP), April 15

Police on Friday arrested 26 folks over allegedly unlawful spiritual conversions of 90 folks within the final 40 days within the district, police mentioned.

The arrests had been made following the registration of a case on a criticism by a Vishva Hindu Parishad office-bearer Himanshu Dixit, who alleged that round 90 Hindus have been illegally transformed to Christianity by the ‘Evangelical Church of India’ within the Hariharganj space, Deputy Superintendent of Police Dinesh Chandra Mishra.

On Dixit’s criticism, an FIR was lodged on the Kotwali police station in opposition to 55 folks, together with 10 girls, beneath numerous sections of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, DSP Mishra mentioned.

The accused are mentioned to be members of the Evangelical Church of India, he mentioned.

A search is on for 29 different accused, the DSP mentioned.

“Thirty-five people were named in the FIR. Efforts are on to identify the remaining 20 (of the 55 accused),” he mentioned, including that the arrested ones are these named within the FIR.

The FIR was lodged following a ruckus on the church within the Hariharganj space on Thursday night.

“A prayer was called by people of the Christian community at the church. Some people from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal reached there in the evening alleging that unlawful conversion of Hindus was being done,” DSP Mishra mentioned.

Senior officers of police and district administration reached the spot to make sure regulation and order following the altercation there on the church, he added.